by Julie Murphy
“Ro!” calls my dad from inside the house. “We’re leaving in a minute. I gotta get Hattie off the couch.”
“Okay!” I call back, and pop up from the swing. “It was nice of Agnes to have us over tonight.” I’m one step away from babbling to fill the silence.
Freddie stands. He’s only an inch or two shorter than me. My eyes have adjusted to the darkness out here so that now when I look at him, he’s more than a silhouette. I can see all the little details, like the dusting of orange freckles across the bridge of his nose and the scar above his right eyebrow. The gap in his teeth. All the things that make him Freddie.
“And thanks for what you said. At dinner,” I add. “I feel the same, just so you know.” The unlit porch makes it a little easier to say what I’ve been feeling out loud. The dark has a way of doing that. “A lot of the good I’ve got going on right now is because of you.”
Again, he’s quiet. Freddie, who always has something to say, says nothing as he takes a step toward me. We’re so close that as we exhale in unison, our bodies press together.
Freddie tilts his head to the side and kisses me lightly. On the lips.
I gasp at first and he pulls back an inch. My heart feels like a fire alarm in my chest. Freddie. Freddie kissed me, and I don’t think it was an act of friendship.
Maybe it’s that I’ve missed touch—any touch—so much that I can’t stop myself, but I loop an arm around his waist, pulling him even closer to me. This time, I kiss him.
And to my surprise, my first thought isn’t that I’m gay or that Freddie is a boy or that he’s one of my best friends. His lips are lips. They’re soft and they taste like pumpkin pie and whiskey.
He deepens the kiss. Or maybe I do. But either way our bodies curl together like vines.
I lose myself in the kiss for only a moment before I remember who these lips are attached to. Freddie. I pull away, panting into the space between us. “You’re supposed to be swearing off girls,” I remind him. “And I’m supposed to be . . . well, you know . . . doing that, too.”
He wipes his thumb across his lips. I wonder what I tasted like to him. “I’m sorry,” he says. He’s breathing as heavy as I am. “I mean, if that’s something you want me to be sorry for.”
My heart is beating in my ears, and I don’t respond, because I’m freaked out. I’m confused. I don’t know what’s happening at all. I’d just found some sort of balance in my world, and now the entire universe has shifted.
“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I really am.”
“Ro!” calls my dad. “Time to motor!”
Freddie looks to me, and I can see the slightest fear in his eyes, like he’s realized what this kiss might cost us. “I won’t do it again. Not unless you tell me to.”
“I’ll call you later.”
I run around the side of the house and meet my dad on the front porch. The three of us pile into his truck, with me in the middle as usual. Saul waves, stifling a yawn, as he gets into his Jeep beside us.
On the way home Hattie falls asleep on my shoulder, and the possibility of waking her up is the only thing stopping me from pulling every blue hair out of my head. I want to scream into the jacket I’ve balled up in my lap. I want to cut this one moment out of my life and put it in my chocolate box to store under my bed, because all I can see is the domino effect this is bound to have on our friendship.
And yet, I didn’t pull away from him. Instead, I kissed him. This is as much my fault as it is his.
When we get home, Tyler is asleep on the couch, watching free HBO. It’s a holiday weekend, so all the premium channels are free, meaning we can actually watch our favorite shows on TV instead of on sketchy websites.
“What are you doing?” spits Hattie. “You were supposed to come to our Thanksgiving dinner when you were done.”
Tyler stands and rubs the heels of his palms in his eyes. “I’m wiped, babe. Did you know they put, like, a serum in turkey to make you sleepy?”
“Is that some kind of conspiracy theory?” I ask.
“You know, we never actually landed on the moon either,” he says.
“I can’t believe you bailed on Thanksgiving dinner,” Hattie tells him.
Hattie and I look to my dad, like he should somehow referee this conversation.
Dad shakes his head. “Off to bed, girls.” He turns to Tyler and gives him one firm nod.
“We’re supposed to be a family, you know?” my sister says. “We’re supposed to be that for this baby.”
“I can’t do this tonight.” Tyler walks back to his and Hattie’s room and closes the door.
She turns to me. “Can you believe him? The father of my daughter, ladies and gentlemen.” And then she walks into my room and slams the door behind her.
I groan and shuffle my feet all the way to my room before knocking on the door.
Hattie swings the door open as she trips out of her clothes. “Can I borrow a T-shirt?”
I dig through my dresser until I come across a soft one. “Here.”
She pulls her dress off over her head and takes the shirt, but it barely stretches over her belly. Hattie looks down at herself. There’s at least a five-inch gap between the hem and her underwear. “Shut up,” she preemptively tells me.
We climb into bed, and I listen as she tells me all the reasons why Tyler is going to be a horrible dad. Her voice is tiny when she admits the one reason why she can’t let him go. “I can’t help but wonder what would have been different if we’d had Mom and Dad.”
Me too, I think.
We’re both quiet for a minute. I want to say it: Freddie kissed me and I kissed him back.
My life is balancing on a scale. On one side is everything I hold dear that makes me feel normal. Hattie and Dad, knowing where I fit and that I’m a lesbian, Ruth and Saul, and even my friendship with Freddie. On the other side is the kiss we shared tonight. But all I can think is: I kissed him back.
I wish my life was a game of MASH and that I could close my eyes and draw a spiral to tell me which way to go.
After Hattie falls asleep, I reach down under my bed and grab my chocolate box. I slide the spider ring off my finger and tuck it between a roll of cash and a few folded-up games of MASH for safekeeping.
TWENTY
For the first time since August, I haven’t talked to Freddie in days.
I keep thinking he’ll call me, but then I remember I promised to call him and that the blame here is shared.
This morning, I did my route as fast as I could and sped past Freddie’s house without even looking to see if Agnes was outside in the flower bed.
“Hey,” Ruthie calls while I’m chaining up my bike in front of the main entrance at school, her mom’s car pulling away behind her. She hasn’t said so, but I’m sure she misses having Saul around for rides.
I wave and wait for her to catch up to me. “How was Florida?”
“Boring without Saul. But my grandma did ask my mom if her and my dad were still ‘boinking.’ But then she tried to set me up with her thirty-two-year-old handyman, so that basically ruined any goodwill I had toward her.”
I laugh. “Aw, that’s great.”
She rolls her eyes. “Do you even realize how much more my house sucks without Saul? My mom keeps buying me all this stuff for my dorm next year, and it’s all pink. Jesus.”
I laugh.
“So what about you? How was Thanksgiving?”
Oh good, Freddie kissed me. I kissed him back. “Good. Uneventful.” And for the first time, I get this twisting knot of guilt in my stomach. As if by kissing Freddie I’ve somehow betrayed Ruth. Ruthie! Of all people. It makes no sense.
As we walk into the main hallway, she points over to the locker bank. “Hey, there’s Freddie and Adam.” She raises her arm to wave at them. “You know, Adam isn’t so bad. I kind of feel like a jerk for never talking to him before he became friends with Freddie. Hey!” she calls to them.
I swat her arm down. “Don’t.”
“What?”
I shake my head. “It’s nothing. We just—I gotta get to class.”
She yanks me away by the wrist. “Not until you tell me what’s going on.”
I trip along behind her as she pulls me into the library and all the way back to the biography section.
Mrs. Treviño, the new librarian, whose wardrobe is way cooler than I’ve ever seen in stores around here, circles behind us, careful to make sure we don’t mess up her perfectly shelved stacks. “I can you help you girls with the catalog if you’re looking for something.”
“We’re good!” Ruth calls sweetly. She lowers her voice. “Okay, what happened?”
I run my fingertips across the tops of the dusty books. The only time anyone checks these out is when a teacher requires that one of your sources be an actual book. I’ve never been a big reader, but I wonder what it would be like to live in a house where you had room and money for bookshelves full of books you don’t have time to read.
“It was nothing. . . .” I see the determination in Ruth’s eyes. She’s the smartest person I know, and if anyone has an answer to this, it’s her. I hesitate for a second, recalling the quick tinge of guilt I felt a moment ago. But I shake it off. I have no reason to feel that way. “Okay, I have a hypothetical question.”
She crosses her arm over her chest and leans against the shelving unit. “Let me hear it.”
“What if someone, like say Saul, who is definitely gay, kissed someone of the opposite sex?”
The tension in her forehead eases. “Everyone experiments. I mean, even straight people are a little bit gay. I think Saul went to freshman homecoming with a girl. I dated Matt Hankins in ninth grade for four months. Four months of kissing a Dorito-flavored mouth with unchecked facial stubble irritating my skin.”
“Right. I get that. But what if said person wasn’t feeling very confused about it?”
She raises an eyebrow. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t really know.” Every bit of hesitation and uncertainty reveals itself in my voice.
Ruth gives me a thin but sympathetic smile. “I guess if you really get down to it, I identify as a homoromantic demisexual.”
My forehead wrinkles into a knot. “A what?”
“Exactly,” she says. “But if I say that to people like my parents, their heads would explode. So I call myself a lesbian, and I’m okay with that.”
She gives me a hard look. “Listen, I don’t know exactly what it is you’re trying to figure out, but I would be careful about leading on other people before you know what you want. Freddie isn’t—”
“This is hypothetical,” I remind her.
“Right. Of course. Well, this guy isn’t just some guy, and this hypothetical person might wanna be careful that they don’t mess up a good thing for no reason. Especially if this hypothetical kiss was just some hypothetical fluke, because this hypothetical person is definitely only attracted to girls.”
I nod my head, slowly at first and then firmer. “Yeah. You’re right.”
“But, really,” she says, “it couldn’t have meant anything, right?”
“Oh yeah,” I say. “Totally.”
“And maybe these two hypothetical people should do everything they can to get back to normal and just be friends.”
I don’t know why, but I can’t look her in the eyes right now, so I pick at the spine of the J-K-L encyclopedia and nod.
Ruth softens a little. “Listen, I’m not a really . . . I don’t know . . . a mushy kind of person, but you know who you are. I remember hearing you came out in ninth grade, and thinking, ‘Wow. Not only does she know who she is, she’s being who she is.’ You don’t have to let this one hypothetical thing change you if you don’t want it to.”
I try not to let her see, because I think Ruth would hate that more than anything, but her words make me tear up. I don’t know how to respond, so I say, “I guess we should get to class.”
At lunch, Freddie is quick to find me in the courtyard outside the cafeteria.
“Hey,” he says. “Can I sit down?”
“Yeah,” I tell him. Act normal. I kissed him back. Don’t be awkward. I kissed him back.
“I know I was supposed to wait for you to call me—”
“Yeah, listen, I wasn’t feeling super great this weekend, and then Hattie and Tyler were arguing, so things were sort of crazy.” All I hear is the conversation I had with Ruth this morning. I’ve got to do whatever I can to get us back to normal.
“Right.” He nods, and I can see that I could give him any excuse and it would all mean the same thing: something has changed. “You up for an extra swim in the morning? We can make up for today.”
Relief floods my chest. “Yeah! For sure!”
“You’re Ramona?” asks a white guy wearing a T-shirt that says What the frak? tucked into cargo shorts. “You’re Ramona,” he says, confirming it for himself. “They said to look for blue hair.”
“Um, yeah?”
Freddie looks at me like you know this guy?
“Right, so I’m Allyster. We’ve gone to school together since eighth grade.”
“Okay?” He waits for me to say something else. “You look familiar.” Just like everyone else. Eulogy may not be so small that I know everyone by name, but I remember faces.
“Well, I should,” he says.
“Can we help you with something?” asks Freddie.
“No, not you. Your grandma already sent in a check.”
Allyster sits down next to me, forcing me to scoot in. I should be annoyed, but I think I’m more amused than anything. “A check for what?”
He opens the binder he’s been clutching against his chest to a printout of a spreadsheet. “You’re the only person in our senior class who hasn’t purchased ad space in the yearbook for a senior page.”
“I’m the only person?”
“Well, the only person who isn’t incarcerated or on maternity leave.”
“So what if I don’t want a senior page?” I ask.
He pulls a loose paper from his binder with all the necessary information, and it looks like the type of thing that’s probably been pushed to the bottom of my locker. “Your call,” he says. “But we’re striving for a hundred percent participation here. Don’t want anybody to be forgotten when they open our class time capsule.”
Allyster walks off, leaving Freddie and me.
I hold the flyer up. “How freaking dumb is this? I can’t believe people are actually paying money for this.”
He scratches the tip of his nose with his index finger. “It’s not that dumb, really. I mean, I’m doing it.”
“Well, Agnes did it for you.”
“Only ’cause I asked her to.”
I glance over the paper. “So what? You just send in some pictures and, like, a final shout-out? I guess it seems weird to me to put these pictures and memories in this book that no one’s gonna ever look at after graduation. And then to charge for it.”
“Or maybe it’s a chance to say thank you to the people you love and put a cheesy senior picture to use.”
The first bell for next period buzzes. I shove the flyer in the front pocket of my backpack. “I’m not asking my dad to pay for that. He’s got enough to worry about. And I’m for sure not forking over any cash for it.” I stand up and sling my backpack over my shoulder. “And it’s not like my time in high school has been all that memorable.”
He holds a hand to his chest dramatically. “I’m insulted.”
I swat his bicep, but he reaches for my hand and holds it inside of his.
“Hey, maybe we should talk about what happened?”
My heart thumps against my chest. “I don’t think there’s anything to talk about.”
His lips twitch. I recognize the hesitation in his expression, because I feel it, too. He’s torn between accepting my answer and pushing for more. “Nothing?” he asks.
I shake my head and pull my hand back. “Nope.”
; “Oh,” he says. “I almost forgot. Adam wants to know if you and Ruth want to come over while he takes my”—Freddie holds his fingers up in air quotes—“‘sweet, sweet Star Wars virginity.’”
Just then Adam pops out of the crossing hallway, as if he’d been summoned. His board is strapped to his backpack, and judging by the whiskers above his lip, he’s experimenting with facial hair. “Oh,” he says. “You won’t want to miss this. I predict tears. Like, full-on man tears.”
Freddie snorts and turns to Adam. “What’s the capital of Thailand?” Adam has barely any time to react and block himself before Freddie shouts, “Bangkok!” and punches him in the nuts. Well, almost. It appears that Adam has adequately defended himself.
“Okay, you almost got me that time,” Adam says.
“All right, boys,” I say. “Ironically, I’ve got to go to geography.”
Freddie grins. “At least you know the capital of Thailand.”
I roll my eyes but can’t hold back a laugh as I head in the opposite direction. I don’t think anything says just friends like watching Freddie punch another guy in the nuts. Everything is going to be fine.
“Hey!” Adam shouts. “What about Freddie’s Star Wars deflowering?”
A few heads turn. I grin. “I’m in.”
TWENTY-ONE
That night Freddie picks Ruth and me up in Agnes’s Cadillac to take us over to Adam’s house for the Star Wars deflowering.
Adam’s house is still as breathtaking as I remember it being.
“Adam’s parents know we’re coming over, right?” asks Ruth.
“This place is so big they might not even notice we’re there,” I tell her.
It blows my mind that the person who lives in this house isn’t an asshole. I know not all rich people are jerks, but you would look at this house and think that the most popular kid in school lives here.
Adam swings the front door open as the three of us file up the steps. He hands us each a plastic toy lightsaber upon entrance.
“Did you go out and buy these just for tonight?” asks Ruth.
“Oh, no,” a woman’s voice says from the neighboring room. “That’s from his personal collection.”
